2000 CNNP "Zhang Xiang Bu Lang" Aged Raw

I’m drinking this straight after the 2000 yi wu shan aged raw pu-erh brick for comparison of similar aged dry and wet storage.

This tea is pleasant, although I think I prefer the wet-stored yi wu shan (seems I’m alone here, but hey different strokes) – I do like dank teas ;)
This does have a lot more going on, but I’m always on a hunt for a taste of old wet bookshop.

this tea is old, medicinal, leathery, plenty of astringency.
the cup aroma is delightfully sweet.

There is a certain profile within aged Shengs I totally adore and love and this is exactly that kind of profile! Bu Lang is on of my favorite types in general because of its distinct and deep flavors. Drinking this type of sheng really lets my heart melt and my mind dream about mysterious magical ancient libraries filled with old manuscripts and l

eather wrapped books. The taste is deep as its flavor and filled with such a nice balanced aged thickness of those former named leathery aspects but majorly old Chinese wooden furniture, camphor, very distinct oud (agarwood) taste & scent plus fresh tobacco meets a hint mixture of sandalwood and oak-moss. There is a sensation going on after a while within your nose which develops a certain subtle note of bourbon vanilla while breathing in and out. Definitely coming back for more of this excellent aged Sheng!

Today was absolutely amazing. The astronomers in Saudi Arabia confirmed last night that the crescent moon was seen, meaning that ramadan is over, and it’s time to stop fasting. In other words, Eid Mubarak! In Celebration I picked out a tea that I have been saving for a while for a special occasion, this tea! It is the first ever aged sheng I have ever drank, and this one did not disappoint.

But first more of my day [Please skip this part if you only want to hear about the tea] I woke up today at 4:00 am for the Eid prayer, the prayer is at 6:30, but I was planning to do it at sultanahmed mosque, an extremely big mosque packed with history (but also packed with tourists). However I took too long getting ready and I left the house at 5:00. This spelled disaster, as the mosque fills up extremely quickly when the call for the first prayer is sounded. I forgot this, and came to the mosque when it was calling for prayer. On a normal day this would have been fine, but this mosque is a very popular one for salat al eid, there was even TV crews at the door filming it live. However, this meant that I could not be in the first row like I was hoping to do, but rather I was about 5 rows back. This was absolutely fine, but the thing is that if you are behind the 3rd row then there are people who come very late but still feel as though they can squish themselves in your already full row, it’s kind of annoying for those at the front rows as those people probably had to wake up extremely early to get that spot, and you just woke up 20 mins ago yet feel as though you fit there. This is exactly what happened to me, a group of 6 syrian men came and fit themselves right in the middle of their row (don’t worry I could tell by their arabic dialect, not being racist or anything haha) sat right in front of me and started to talk during the speech of the sheikh. This was extremely annoying as I could not hear the speech itself, and could barely sit down because it was so squished. But everything was well when Eid prayer was finished, as the whole mosque emptied out. I swear there were only like 3 people inside the whole huge mosque (look up a picture of sultanahmed mosque and you will see why this was so amazing), so I took a corner and watched the sun rise while reading quran. It was so amazing, the mosque was so quiet that all you could hear were the birds in the garden outside. So peaceful. Then I took a walk around the old city near my apartment during peak morning sun, and took some very nice pictures. man why do I have to leave in two days I’m finally starting to love it here!

I have always been wondering what aged sheng tastes like, will it be like a ripe or… But eh, kind of. This tea is like a ripe that is perfect for the spring. A Ripe that is not as heavy, it is light and elegant still with plenty of flavor. It was very nice, but still not at all what I was expecting. I’m sure not all aged Ripes are like this, but this one was very vegetal, like a freshly chopped weeds in the garden type of vegetal.

The first two steepings of this tea were where it shined most. It was very fruity…extremely fruity. The fruits I got were very dark, stone fruits such as plums, and grapes, but this tasted the most like cherries! It was very very nice, and at this stage in the tea it was syrupy and heavy like a ripe, which was so good.

However, the tea lightened up very quickly after the 3rd steeping. It was the lightness of a 8th steeping of a ripe, yet with the flavor of a 2rd steeping of a ripe, very refreshing. However, this is where the fruit started to fade and it became extremely vegetal. By the 5th steeping it became a bit too much, and I decided to take a break.

The qi was nice on this one too, not too much, but yet enough that you can feel it.

Overall, it was a nice tea, and I am extremely excited to try more aged shengs and see what flavor profiles they bring, because so be honest ripe puers are starting to all taste the same!

This was overall a nice tea. I only bought a sample but it might be worth buying a cake of. There were some notes of leather and tobacco that were gone by around the fourth steep. It was replaced by a note I would call a sweet note but very different from the sweet note of a young sheng. I am not sure how to describe it. I did in the end like this cake.

I steeped this tea eight times in a 75ml teapot with 5.2g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, and 30 seconds.

I got some bits of this cake (I don’t remember how), so I gave it a steep. I like CNNP, and I like aged sheng, so what the heck. The leaves are curled and frail; a good amount of darkness has grown. They give off a nice woody, spice, and cedar aroma. The leaves are very aromatic, and the scent is nice and smooth. I warmed up my pot tossed them in. The age is mellowing and dry wood tones appear. I can hint at a slight eucalyptus aroma along with the same cedar note mixed with tobacco. I washed the puppies once and prepared to steep. The taste is sweet and clean. A prominent note of oak aged whisky appears right from the start. The astringency is mild and tends to linger in the aftertaste. A smoky wisp makes itself comfortable at the tip of my tongue. The tea calms down a bit after a few steeps and gives a bassy cranberry throatiness. The aggressive tones seem to wipe away after four steepings and the tea becomes quite soft and sweet with a base of oats. The huigan becomes thicker is quite nice. The qi is very powerful with heavy chest pressure and a top heavy feeling. I was sweating like pig towards to end of the session. I liked this tea, and it was a good drinker.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BIksD45gh8S/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

I feel this is between the semiaged and aged stages of sheng. A slight bitterness on the edge of the earthy flavour. The earthiness is quite faint and is enveloped in a honeyed fruity thickness. Some woody flavour also. Slightly powdery and soft mouthfeel.

From PTTB-4

Rich, meaty aroma. Good mature flavor is mostly leather and tobacco, with some meat and fruit. 2nd steep is even better. Lots of camphor appearing, with strong tobacco notes. By the 3rd steep, I was getting tired of the heavy camphor though there was nice tobacco underneath, as well as some spice in the finish. Some would consider this a really fine tea, but I’m not all that into camphor.

The tea had great longevity. Still going strong after about 8 steeps. I went back about 8 hours later and it was still going strong, and it started to grow on me. At this point I was steeping for about a minute, and the flavor is just camphor and tobacco, but it is fairly strong and still has good mouth feel and a nice balance between nose, taste, and finish. I just kept steeping and it was probably about the 15th steep that I finally decided there was no more flavor in the leaves.

I’m not going to give the tea a score, since I rated it down on my personal ambivalence about camphor. If you are into camphor, you will think this is an excellent tea.

I’ve had this sample for over two years. Back then I really did not know what to make of it. Now that I’ve tasted a range of quality young and aged sheng I thought it was time to revisit it.

This tea spent it’s first four years in humid storage, then was moved to Kunming for the remainder. It comes across as a very nice sheng that has passed through middle-aged and is on it’s way to maturity. No sign of wet storage taste that I could detect.

The steeps smell of old books, medicinal notes, camphor, leather, with a couple of hints of cabbage near the end. The cup has a slight Bulang bitterness remaining which turns sweet in the aftertaste. I also get old books, leather, light citrus, some spice, camphor and medicinal notes. Good throat lubrication with slight dryness of the mouth (an interesting contrast).

I took it through 16 steeps, but I was pushing it a bit mid-session to see how the leaf reacted. It was always very smooth with no sign of astringency. I also got a great calming energy from it, and around steep 10 I heard the dying reverberation of a temple bell playing in my head for several minutes. I really enjoyed how this tea made me feel, in addition to the flavor.

Although a little pricey, I’m going to add a bing to my stash.